Grant Access To Your Gmail Account Without Sharing Your Password

Whenever I go for a vacation, it really gets tough to get internet access at most places. Actually, I really love some time off my online activities during my vacation. Unfortunately, emails don’t stop flooding your Inbox just because you are not willing to read them. There are chances you can miss out on some important deals just because of this. Vacation responder is a good way around; but sometimes automation is not enough. So every time, I leave for a holiday, I have to entrust someone with my account, come back, take control back and then change the password to make sure nobody else than me has access to that account. Quite frustrating.

Google has recently rolled out a new feature called Email Delegation. You can use this to give someone access to your account i.e he/she can read or send mail on your behalf. You can do that just by granting access to someone, there is no need to share your password. Once you wish to take control, just revoke access.

1. Go to Settings > Accounts and Import (for Google Apps mail its only Account). Scroll down and you will find a section named, “Grant access to your account“. Use the “Add another account” link.

2. A pop up will open, enter the email address you wish to grant access to and confirm.

3. A confirmation link will be sent to that email address and once its accepted, he/she can read or send emails on your behalf.

4. Once you want to revoke access, just use the delete link beside the account you want to revoke access from.

One thing to note is that you can grant access to Gmail account to another Gmail account only. Guess what, Gmail just got better.

[via Gmail Blog]